Holocaust/Transcript
Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, are visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. Thousands of names are written on the memorial. Tim is reading a guidebook. TIM: It says here that all these people were killed in the Holocaust. Moby hands Tim a sheet of paper. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, What was the Holocaust? From, Brian. TIM: The Holocaust was the systematic murder of about six million Jews during World War II. Images show Jewish concentration camp prisoners. TIM: It was the worst genocide that we know of. More people were killed during the Holocaust than during any other genocide in human history. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Genocide is when one group of people tries to completely wipe out another group. During World War II, Germany's leader, or führer, was Adolf Hitler. An image shows Adolf Hitler seated next to a swastika, a Nazi symbol. TIM: Before the war, Hitler and his Nazi party gained popularity by promising to make Germany a rich and powerful nation again after their defeat in World War I. An animation shows Hitler speaking to a crowd. German soldiers stand behind him. TIM: Racism, especially anti-Semitism, was a focus of the Nazi agenda. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Anti-Semitism is racism against Jews. The Nazis publicly blamed the Jews for Germany's loss of World War I, the Great Depression, and everything else that people thought was wrong with the world. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, unfortunately, anti-Semitism didn't start with the Nazis. It has a long history in Europe. An image shows a map of Europe. TIM: The Nazis used Jews as a scapegoat for Germany's problems. It's a lot easier to blame someone else for what's wrong instead of working to make it better. People do that all the time on a much smaller and less destructive level. In Germany, the Nazis passed laws that slowly gave Hitler absolute control of the government. And they began to restrict the Jewish people's rights. Quotas, or limits, were placed on the number of Jewish students schools could enroll. An image shows a Jewish student sitting alone on a classroom bench. TIM: Jewish people were forced to live outside of Germany in Nazi-controlled ghettos. An image shows a very rundown urban area. TIM: The largest ones were in Warsaw, Poland. A map of Poland shows the location of Warsaw, in east-central Poland. TIM: Things got more and more extreme for the Jewish people. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws took German citizenship away from all Jews. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I never thought about it that way, but you're kind of right. The beginning of the Jews' oppression was a bit like segregation in the U.S., but it was happening to the Jews in Germany. They were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes, so everyone would know who was Jewish. An image shows a six-point star, also called a Star of David. It is yellow. TIM: And on the streets, people were encouraged to harass Jews. An animation shows a Jewish couple walking down a street. They are wearing yellow stars. Others on the street are pointing at them. TIM: It was legal because Hitler was in charge. It all came to a head on November 9, 1938, when Nazi mobs across Germany murdered ninety Jews, destroyed temples, and looted Jewish-owned shops. It was called Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. That night, German authorities arrested 30,000 Jews and sent them to concentration camps. An animation shows a burning synagogue, a Jewish house of worship. TIM: Concentration camps were large prisons that the Nazis built as part of their Final Solution, a government-run plan to exterminate the Jews. An image shows a large concentration camp surrounded by fences. TIM: Hitler was so crazy that it wasn't enough for him to be separate from the Jewish people. He literally wanted them gone from the face of the earth. The Nazis' Final Solution was to kill all the Jewish people whom they could round up. An animation shows a group of Jews dressed for travel. They slowly turn to silhouettes. TIM: Whatever lies were told to the people heading there at the time, many concentration camps were places of death. Millions of Jews were killed in gas chambers at these places. An image shows the entrance to Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. Train tracks lead directly to the entrance. TIM: The Nazis also killed other people they saw as undesirable, like Slavic people, gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and the developmentally disabled. By the time the war ended and the camps were liberated, the Nazis had murdered close to six million Jews, and millions more other people they didn't like. No one's really sure of the exact number, but something like 10 million people were murdered by the Nazis. An image shows three Jewish men in a concentration camp. They are severely underfed and exhausted. MOBY: Beep. Moby wipes away a tear. TIM: Yeah. Me, too. It's really sad and overwhelming. Hey, you guys should talk about this with your parents and teachers. They're good for that, you know. So are friends. Tim puts his arm around Moby's shoulder. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I know. The whole thing is really scary and horrible. But it's important to remember it and talk about it, so that it doesn't happen again. MOBY: Beep. Moby holds a sheet of paper. Tim reads from it. TIM: It's a custom to leave a stone as a remembrance. Tim places a stone on top of a small pile of them at the memorial. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts